


Awkward Calling

by chibiwonder



Series: Small Difficulties [5]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is in an alternate dimension now and that's awful, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2066199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibiwonder/pseuds/chibiwonder





	Awkward Calling

Cecil had been dreading this phone call, and had tried to put it off for as long as he could. But caller ID told him that he couldn’t put it off any longer. Taking a deep breath, he picked up the phone next to the living room sofa, sat down, and put on the cheeriest possible voice he could muster. “Hi, Carmen!”

“Cecil? Hi.” Carmen sounded not the least bit suspicious or tense, which meant that he had totally nailed his greeting. The question, of course, was where to go from here.

“How have you been?” he asked. He hoped she would talk for a while, partly so he had time to think, and partly to delay the inevitable.

“I’ve been alright. Got back from that ‘spontaneous vacation’ that Carlos thought of a month or so ago. I tried calling you then, but no one was picking up.”

“Ah…” It was understandable. They had both been rather busy lately. “Sorry about that. It wasn’t intentional, I promise.”

Carmen sighed. “I’m sure it wasn’t. I’m just glad you turned out okay. Carlos really had me worried when he called… I’m assuming everything turned out okay, right?”

“You certainly are presuming so.” Why on Earth was he dragging this out? “I’m fine, and I believe Carlos is also fine.”

“You  _believe_  he’s fine?” Ah, she sounded suspicious now. It was a perfect opportunity to spring the news.

Cecil opened his mouth… and failed. “Well, I’m not him. He’s told me he’s fine, and I believe him, but it would be presumptive to just tell you as though I know for sure.”

Carmen laughed. “You do have a point. I’ll just have to ask him. Is he around?”

“Oh. Um.” Cecil refused to panic. He could get through this. (Oh, but he didn’t want to.) (He had to.) (He couldn’t.) (He could.) (Oh, no, she wants an answer Cecil  _say something!_ ) “He’s not… around right now.” (Damn.)

“Out working, huh? I’ll probably try his cell phone, then.”

“No! Um, no. I’ve tried but my phone has manifested ectoplasmic acid -” (Almost, but not quite, indistinguishable from acidic ectoplasm) “- and I think something similar may happen to yours.”

He could almost hear Carmen’s raised eyebrows. “Is that a common malfunction?”

“No, it’s a cross-dimensional malfunction, I believe.” Had he just said that?

“Huh. Well, that route is out… cross-dimensional?”

Ah, she’d caught it. It was now or never. “Yes. I’ve only ever seen it happen with Dana’s phone before.”

“…Dana, the girl who was trapped in an alternate dimension… thing.”

She really was catching on fast. “Yes.”

“And now Carlos’ phone has the same things happening.”

“Near as I can tell.”

Carmen took a deep breath. Cecil held his. “Cecil, did my brother lose his phone in another dimension?”

Not exactly the question he was expecting… He had to be really honest, now. “He hasn’t lost it. He still texts me. And he calls me. We actually did almost a whole show together yesterday, with him over the phone.”

“Ah.” Another deep breath. And then another. And another. Cecil waited for the explosion, which came calmly forward as a question.

“How did this happen? No, don’t answer that.  _Why_  did this happen?”

“I… we couldn’t close the oak doors unless he stayed behind them. And they had to close, or we were doomed. The whole town was.”

It hurt to say, but he had said it. The only question left was whether Carmen would accept it. He hadn’t, at first, and even so many weeks later, he would miss Carlos’ presence in their home. Would miss the warmth of another human being beside him at night. Would miss his wonderful smile, the curls of his hair…

Carmen stayed silent for a long moment. Then she said, very calmly, “You said he texts you?”

Cecil blinked. “Yes, he does.”

“I’m assuming, then, that he is okay. At the very least, his fingers aren’t broken. I’m also assuming that he will be back as soon as possible.”

“He’s working on it, I think. From what he tells me, there’s a lot about the place he’s trapped in that’s scientifically interesting to study, but he’ll come back when he can.”

“I would hope so.” Carmen sighed. “He's probably going to miss Cate’s birthday again. But, it’s not as though this wasn’t a possibility, Night Vale being the way it is. 

She was taking the news much better than he had. He wondered, not of the first time, whether his previous hypnosis of her had worked a little  _too_  well. Her voice broke into his thoughts.

“Cecil?” Carmen’s voice was soft. “Cecil?”

“Yes?”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“It - Carmen, I don’t -” Cecil’s breathing hitched for a moment. Just a moment. And suddenly he was sobbing into the receiver, curled tightly on the sofa, and telling Carmen as much as he could tell about StrexCorp and Dana and John Peters (you know, the farmer) and angels (which weren’t real) and Tamika and - and - and-

“Carlos was so wonderful and I miss him so much I - I don’t want him to be gone anymore and sometimes it feels like he’s so close but mostly he feels so far away and I’m af-afraid he’ll get hurt or that he’ll never be able to come back or - or maybe he won’t even  _want_  to because he loves that place and those people more than he loves  _me_  and I’ll n-never see him again.”

“Well, that last one’s a silly fear - of  _course_  he loves you, Cecil. You managed to penetrate the shell he put around himself that was all science all the time, and that’s something no one else has ever done. So how could he stop loving you?”

Cecil felt marginally better at this, but the tears went on. “But what - what if he _can’t_  come back?”

Carmen’s voice was soft, and sounded much more confident than he felt. “Well, Dana came back, didn’t she? Carlos  _is_  going to come back, and you  _will_ see him again. He’s a smart man, Cecil. He’ll find a way back, and he’ll love you just as much that day as he does right now.”

Cecil took several shallow breaths, trying to control himself. He was slightly more successful than he had been on past attempts. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because he knows if he doesn’t, I’m going to kick his ass.”

Cecil sniffled and grinned, the first genuine grin in weeks. It was a fragile thing, but it was real. “Not if I do it first.”

“We’ll share.”

“Right… Carmen?” Cecil cradled the phone against his shoulder as he shifted on the sofa.

“Yes, Cecil?”

“Thank you for calling.”

There was a brief moment of silence on the other end of the line before Carmen responded. “You’re welcome, Cecil.”

“And thanks for hearing me cry about things. You’re really good at that.”

Carmen laughed, but it sounded hollow in his ears. “I’m a mom, it’s part of the job description. But, you know, feel free to give me a call if you need to talk some more… And tell Carlos to call me, too, if he can.” Carmen took in a shaky breath that was very much at odds with her calm tone. “I’d like to hear from him sometimes, too. It isn’t like I don’t worry about my kid brother sometimes.”

Cecil knew how that felt. He let the fragile grin on his face slide off again. “I will.” Whether he meant it about himself or about Carlos, he wasn’t quite sure. Maybe it was both. “Goodbye, Carmen.”

“Goodbye, Cecil.”

Cecil set the phone back in his cradle. Carmen was quite something. He was glad, now, that the phone call had happened. And he had meant it when he had thanked her for calling. He knew, of course, that the feeling wasn’t entirely mutual. Hypnotism or no, Carmen was still human, and the news he’d had to offer wasn’t an easy thing to to deal with.

He only hoped that, tangled up somewhere in his words of gratitude, she also found an invitation to talk whenever she needed to.


End file.
